THE NEW REPUBLIC: The Democrats Are Running Out of Time. “The Democrats enter a new year more or less exactly where they were before Congress shut down for the holidays. Their legislative agenda is completely stalled out, and it’s not clear how the party’s leaders will get it unstuck.”

They have done very little in the last few months beyond very pointedly warring with one another. During that time, the Biden administration briefly threatened to restart student loan payments, before backing down—and kicking the can down the road to the spring, when doing so would be even worse for the party’s dismal midterm prospects. It has more recently made it clear that no further Covid relief in the manner of last year’s American Rescue Plan Act will be forthcoming, despite the fact that parts of the country are effectively shut down due to the insanely infectious omicron variant. This might play into the hands of Republicans, who will have the opportunity to make the case, only somewhat disingenuously, that they did as much on this front as their rivals. Donald Trump would be a fool not to mount such an argument in 2024—though so far his nascent presidential campaign remains resolutely focused on conspiracy theories about vote-counting software, so it’s not a sure thing that he will.

Testing remains patchy and often expensive, effective masks are hard to come by, the administration is sending out half a billion at-home testing kits and modestly expanding the number of federal testing sites, but its response to the pandemic has lately degenerated into inadequacies and frustration—which is particularly bad given that responding to Covid-19 was the centerpiece of Biden’s presidential campaign.

But other than that, how are you enjoying your party’s performance?